Omens
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 2 anchored passages
omens · birds · chance meetings · cries of birds · diviner's art · dreams · prophets · sounds · thunder · utterances of men
in the texts
Apology
Accepted forms of divine forewarning used to argue that Socrates' divine voice is not impious innovation.
Surely those who take their omens from the cries of birds and the utterances of men form their judgments on voices.
The only difference between them and me is that whereas they call the sources of their forewarning birds, utterances, chance meetings, prophets, I call mine a divine thing;
Symposium
Signs through which gods communicate what should and should not be done.
at any rate, all cities and all races ask the gods, by the diviner’s art, for advice as to what to do and what to avoid.
and so they send me as messengers omens of sounds, dreams, and birds, and thus indicate what I ought to do and what I ought not to do.